Voice and Piano

My Six Songs for Philip Frohnmayer were written to honor this friend and colleague, a remarkable baritone singer, and a yet more remarkable man, during the time of his courageous struggle with cancer. I would write a song when I came across a poem that seemed to me to resonate in some particular way with his character and personhood, and I wrote the songs for his voice, in the hope that someday he might sing them—a hope that would never be realized. “On the Beach at Night,” a tender lyric adapted from Walt Whitman, reminded me of Phil as the loving father of his daughter, Anne Marie. Sidney Lanier’s famous poem, “A Ballad of Trees and the Master,” is essentially a meditation on Christ’s suffering, and I very much associated this poem with Phil’s suffering as a cancer patient. Lanier’s beautiful poem, “Look off, dear love, across the sallow sands,” expressed to me the remarkable love between Phil and his wife, Ellen. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Out of the bosom of the air,” one of that poet’s bleakest expressions of despair, speaks to our loss when Phil passed away. “The Ferryman,” adapted from a short dialogue poem by Christina Rosetti, reminded me of Phil’s remarkable ability to alleviate pain through wit. The final song in this cycle is the one Phil wished most to sing—fittingly, I think, because it expresses such courage in the face of infirmity and its obstacles. Adapted from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Ulysses,” its tones, I hope, come at least a little way toward evoking Phil’s fortitude.

1. “On the Beach at Night” (Whitman)—A tender lyric in which a father lovingly reveals the secrets of the heavens to his daughter.
2. “A Ballad of Trees and the Master” (Lanier)—Sidney Lanier’s Lenten meditation on the meaning of suffering, death, and redemption.
3. “Evening Song”—A beautiful lyric poem about the love and tenderness shared by husband and wife.
4. “Snow-Flakes” (Longfellow)—Longfellow uses the metaphor of a snowy evening to illustrate the quiet desperation of a great loss.
5. “The Ferryman” (Christina Rosetti)—Rosetti’s gently witty tale of a maiden asking to be ferried across the water by a boatman who insists that she pay the fare.
6. “From ‘Ulysses’” (Tennyson)

I wrote this song for my wife Sharon on the occasion of our wedding in 1999. The text is St. Augustine’s famous love song to the risen Christ, one of the most beautiful uses of the metaphor of romantic love in the service of religious devotion.

Psalm in April is written in memoryof my father, William Iverson Horne. He chose the 27thPsalm to be read at his funeral. I divided the Psalm into four sections, according to the nature of the text: confidence in God as our source of courage; confidence in God as a stronghold in time of evil; a prayer “that we may dwell in the house of the Lord”; and a prayer that, in the end, we may see God face to face. Before the last section I inserted a short interlude for piano alone—a sort of tender nocturne during which the singer is asked to look away and think on someone he loves. No musical monument that I could ever write in memory of my father could expressadequatelymy great love and admiration for him. His inner strength, honesty, integrity, and good heartedness inspire me to this day. I am forever in his debt

1. “The Lord Is My Light and My Salvation”—The 27^th Psalm opens with a proclamation of faith and a dismissal of fear.
2. “When Evildoers Came Upon Me”—The 27^th Psalm continues with an acknowledgement of the problem of evil, and an assurance that those who are evil will stumble and fall.
3. “One thing have I asked of the Lord”—The 27^th Psalm continues with a petition—a prayer that “I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.” This is a prayer to be given the strength of character to live righteously, in honesty and faith.
4. Intermezzo—During this very slow and solemn movement for piano alone, placed between the third and fourth songs of the cycle, the singer is instructed to “look away, and think on someone he loves.”
5. “Hearken to My Voice, O Lord”—The 27^th Psalm concludes with an extended prayer that the faithful petitioner will be granted to see the Lord “face to face,” in the words of St. Paul, and granted the faith to wait patiently for the Lord.

Songs for Ellenis a collection of songs that I wrote for soprano Ellen Frohnmayer. “The Angel Gabriel” is an arrangement of an anonymous Basque folk song celebrating the angel’s appearance to the Virgin Mary. Thomas Hardy’s “The Oxen” is a complex reminiscence of the simple, childhood faith that the animals knelt in reverence at the birth of Jesus. In “The Nightingale’s Song,” adapted from the Medieval long poem The Owl and the Nightingale, the bird advises and consoles a young girl who has gone astray; shallow love, shesays, “does not last long. / It merely brushes with its wing, / Then goes, just like the song I sing.” Robert Frost’s great poem, “A Late Walk,” describes a quiet moment that embracesboth a world-wearinessthat is “sadder than any words” and a tender gesture of hopefulness. Finally, in “Winds of Autumn,” adapted from Walt Whitman, the poet listens intently to the tones of the organ, to the winds in the trees at dusk, and to the pulse of his love in the quiet of the night

1. “The Angel Gabriel”—A gentle arrangement of a Basque folk song celebrating the visitation of the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary.
2. “The Oxen” (Hardy)—Thomas Hardy’s melancholy rumination on the first Christmas Eve.
3. “The Nightingale’s Song” (from The Owl and the Nightingale)—The anonymous Medieval text contemplates the ambiguities faced by a young girl abandoned by her lover. The Nightingale soothes her with its song.
4. “A Late Walk” (Frost)—Robert Frost’s immensely tender lyric of love in the face of despondency.
5. “Winds of Autumn” (Whitman)—Adapted from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, the melancholy text sings tenderly of remembered love.